The Sages and the Non-Essentials

Welcome to the weekend edition of the sheltered-in-place non-essential Mark Steyn Show, with an audio Coronacopia of news and comment, plus a few other diversions, including a poem for a lost past, swearing the coppers into submission, lessons from Spencer Perceval and Harold Holt, and a stairway to the stars from war, footie and "Jeopardy".

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81 Member Comments

TexUte • Apr 19, 2020 at 13:06

The recording of the outraged Englishman chasing the cops out of his flat is hysterical. Where can one find the unedited version?

Mathew Cusma • Apr 19, 2020 at 11:48

Mark - Thank you! Thank you Thank you! For moving off from the Kung Flu Fighting parody. I appreciate your creative spirit, but that was an ear-worm that was driving me mad! Your turn at Please Release Me is much more pleasant, in my humble opinion. Put me down in the "For" column for the audio version of The Mark Steyn Show.

Mark replies:

Don't jump the gun, Matthew. "Kung Flu" may yet return...

Richard Caskey • Apr 18, 2020 at 17:52

Thanks to Governor Murphy, we now have a New Jersey Wanker Copper of the Day. I feel a bout of civil disobedience coming on.

Walt Trimmer • Apr 18, 2020 at 17:37

Your response to Al Man from CA had my head spinning with Lord Whozit and Irish Viscount McWhatzit (but I did like the part about shooing a politician) but all I want to know is who is controlling the nuclear football? Does anyone in the UK still realize there is such a thing as nuclear release codes?

PS. Too bad Patti Page beat you to Please Release Me.

Segnes Schonken Walt Trimmer • Apr 19, 2020 at 01:52

"[W]ho is controlling the nuclear football?" Disconcerting question, W. It was disconcerting long before the latest Chinese 'flu made itself felt. Mind you, not nearly as disconcerting as it would have been had Mr Corbyn come to power!

Interesting that so few journalists ask the question, isn't it?

Paul G. • Apr 18, 2020 at 13:43

I sure it's been asked many times, and probably trenchantly answered, but where have the "Question Authority" bumper stickers gone?

Michael Bledsoe Paul G. • Apr 18, 2020 at 15:30

The people who used to question authority have found that it's a lot safer to submit to it. It's also more fun to indulge their voyeuristic fantasies surveillling their neighbors for counterrevolutionary thoughts and actions in order to report them to those same authorities.

Snitches find niches.

Paul G. Michael Bledsoe • Apr 18, 2020 at 21:44

Actually, I was hoping to get one to go along with my new ponytail

Kate Smyth • Apr 18, 2020 at 13:15

On the CCP's one-two punch - per comments last month - and predictions for 2020-21 by Peter Jennings (former deputy secretary for strategy in the Defence Department) in The Weekend Australian, including the following excerpts:

- Beijing's increased military activities are meant to be seen as a show of strength and to contrast with the challenges the US Navy is facing with maintaining a viable presence in the western Pacific â€” aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt is tied up in Guam, with COVID-19 having infected many personnel.

- China claims that crew on three other American aircraft carriers have faced COVID-19 outbreaks and that there is no viable US carrier presence in the Pacific.

- Beijing is clearly showing it can operate forces around the so-called first island chain including Japan, Taiwan and maritime Southeast Asia.

- How might this play out across the rest of this year and into next year? I anticipate a dangerous situation arising over Taiwan as Xi Jinping seeks to seize a strategic advantage while the US remains dangerously incapacitated.

- A crisis over the Taiwan Strait would instantly push the region into a dangerous cold-war situation, one that would be the ultimate test of US credibility as a Pacific power, and would be existentially threatening to Taiwan and Japan. There would be no guarantees that a blockade wouldn't slide into major and sustained conflict, drawing in the US and its allies.

- The reality of China's threat to regional security is undeniable. Now we must prepare for the crisis after the crisis.â€”â€”â€”PS. It's noteworthy that the US military has (officially) reported nineteen Covid deaths to date. (Compared to the whole of Taiwan = 6 deaths.)

As Mark has says, "China looks ahead: will we?"

Perry Pattetic Kate Smyth • Apr 18, 2020 at 13:49

The CCP is determined to have a war. HK's goose is cooked (see the latest round-up) and Taiwan is front and center. That strange oil tanker episode in Iran, where the Iranians hijacked a HK-reg'd tanker, took it to Iran waters and then released it. Missile or munitions delivery? Russians buzzing USN flights.It is implausible to accept that the Chinese military is not affected by the Xi's plague, unless they have all been medicated or vaccinated in advance.

Michael Seth Kate Smyth • Apr 18, 2020 at 15:42

Thank you Kate for your invaluable info. Watching Tucker report on the bootlicking/subversion of many major Dem politicians and the ChiCom propaganda machine these past days has been almost as horrifying as the virus itself. Your comments are truly edifying, if depressing. The answer to Mark's question, even post-virus, remains astoundingly "No".

Walt Trimmer Kate Smyth • Apr 18, 2020 at 18:18

I would have court martialed the Captain of the USS Teddy Roosevelt. My first rule of security is to keep your mouth shut. Somebody in the chain of command thought putting into port in Da Nang Vietnam on March 4 was a good idea. Was the plague on board the ship a planned biowarfare attack?

On a positive note, the Air Force put on an elephant walk of B-52's (aka BUF's) on Guam this week. I wonder if the Chinese noticed?

Kate Smyth Michael Seth • Apr 18, 2020 at 22:24

Thanks, Michael - yes, the American left has shown its unbridled admiration for the ChiCom approach (not surprisingly), and exploited the opportunity for despotic, arbitrary rule over US citizens. The situation is nearing full blown "anarcho-tyranny", given that dangerous prisoners go free while law-abiding citizens are under indefinite house-arrest (with domestic disease transmission unaddressed).

It looks like the issue for conservatives will be the (understandable) focus on restarting the economy ASAP amidst regional disease outbreaks over the coming months, with the risk of continuing business-as-usual with China to the exclusion of the big picture "macro threats".

A guest on Lou Dobbs noted that the CCP's domestic "image" is vital to maintaining control over 1.4 billion citizens, and that disruption of propaganda should be the focus of the West (and the rest): China needs to be treated as the global pariah that it is... even as leftists side with it against freeborn peoples.

More from Peter Jennings:
- The challenge for Washington, Canberra and other allies and partners is to ensure Xi calculates that this is a risk not worth taking.

- What should Australia do? First, Scott Morrison needs to be talking with Trump, Shinzo Abe, Joko Widodo, a recovered Boris Johnson and any other national leader who is willing to join a co-ordinated pushback against PRC military opportunism.

- Australia is going to be deeply in debt, but we don't have to be in debt and unsecure. Now is the time to be investing in nation-building, sovereignty-enhancing defence capabilities.

PS. Needless to say, the whole thing brings to mind a variation of Mark's "mullahs-and-nukes" warning: We'll be talking about transgender bathrooms when the ChiCom Flu infects us.

Kate Smyth Perry Pattetic • Apr 18, 2020 at 22:30

Not good: The arrests in HK at this point in time are calculated to send a strong message to the world.

And we know what the PRC does with political prisoners - which is what these brave individuals were protesting in the first place.

Todd Lewis • Apr 18, 2020 at 13:06

I wouldn't have thought that something could bring leftists out of their dens more than the election of Donald Trump, but the coronavirus seems to have done so. It is like the summer of the 17 year locust out there. It is a frightening spectacle to realize how many people buy so unreservedly into the idolatry of power. Who knew Gretchen Whitmer was Madame Mao. The examples are legion; Gorbachev Garcetti, Nork Northam, Che Cuomo and all the rest. And that brings us to the wanker coppers. Do they not know, do they not care, or do they actually love that have become lawless thugs and societal malefactors. I would like to believe that all of this is a highly effective teachable moment for all of the credulous among us who still don't believe evil is everywhere among us. Unfortunately, I think I will have to regard their collective epiphany as an open question.

Barbara Yunker • Apr 18, 2020 at 11:56

The range of reactions to Mark's 40 golden minutes elicits tears of laughter at the initial monologue plus song, then rage about matters political/governmental, adulation for the ballsy gentleman defying the wankers (I can't bear to call the creatures "police") to tears of sadness for his eloquent witness for the victims of the virus. Phew!!! Afterwards, I need exercise and fresh air to mitigate the overall depression. Living in Huntington Beach (where a protest against the quarantine took place yesterday), I can ride my bike on the boardwalk, walk on the beach, etc. To the south of HB is Newport Beach and to the north is Seal Beach, where any beach and park activity is completely prohibited. How are these cities, which depend on tourists, going to survive? Even the mighty Anaheim is hurting with the closure of Disneyland. As of today, April 18, there have been 25 Coronavirus deaths in Orange County. But the absolute destruction of the California economy is worth it to prevent Donald Trump from being re-elected.

Fran Lavery Â Barbara Yunker • Apr 18, 2020 at 17:03

I think this will backfire on the dem Governors, Barbara. My daughter is up around the South Bay beach area and they are happy they have a back yard now for the children. They had just started coaching a little girls softball league when the virus prompted all the shutdown and stay at home orders. The parents were really enjoying working with the little kids, the little kids were having a lot of fun and it gave everyone a break from their work and daycare routines at the end of the week. It got the parents and the children out in the fresh air after being indoors all weeklong.

The madness of some of these directives is over the top, counter intuitive and people are feeling the pain. I heard there had been some messages slipping out from people in China this past week (not the CCP) that they observed that putting people inside cooped up together was actually increasing the spread of the virus. That makes sense to me. If three elderly persons or those with underlying issues stay at home and one goes out to do all the shopping for essentials who's to say that one won't come home with a virus gift? Another note was made of the public transit system being a place for easy transmission. Last I heard it was still operating in NYC.

We just heard from our Governor in New Mexico that because our Dona AÃ±a County is doing so well (only one death in a huge county) the CDC prevention study is going to use us as a model. That worried me especially when today I heard this irrational comment: we're doing so well we can't open up because we may not have peaked yet, so we have to be sure that we stay closed well after we peaked just to be sure we're out of the woods. This could go on forever because someone is worried we never peaked. I've also mentioned here we have one of the poorest counties in the country. God Help Us!

GeoDent Barbara Yunker • Apr 18, 2020 at 20:34

Since Mark, via Rush or via Tucker, has much loftier connections than I, an idea for President Trump's campaign to get re-elected and maybe dig us out of this nasty economic hole we're sinking into might get to the president. He did it once, Make America Great Again, so why not Make America Great Again, Again? MAGGA.It's really difficult to imagine anyone else doing it, especially Joe B who would be dancing like a puppet, with his minders pulling the strings, all the while with a big unaware smile on his face.

GeoDent GeoDent • Apr 18, 2020 at 23:51

Whoops! Make that MAGAA, Make America Great Again,Again.

Stephen Savageau • Apr 18, 2020 at 11:17

Thank You for sharing the Charlotte Ann Jerauld poem, A Song for the Past, The poem has everything, "Purity, Body, and Flavor." It has the discovery thrill of reading something not yet overworked in the dry, blue-stocking world of contemporary criticism and adoptive exploitation, All one would ask is a link to a computer printable page for to keep the sharing to other lovers of discovered American literary treasure.

Olga Herman • Apr 18, 2020 at 11:05

Please do king flu fighting again and please release me. I can't get enough of songs like these.

Mark replies:

Thank you, Olga. Total lockdown can do strange things to one's musical tastes...

Calvert Whitehurst • Apr 18, 2020 at 09:29

Those of us with long memories can remember Jimmy Carter referring to energy crisis as the "moral equivalent of war" or "meow" for short. For Carter, meow seemed mostly to consist of turning down the thermostat and putting on a sweater in the winter, and - I guess - turning the thermostat up and sitting around in our scanties during the summer - although luckily we were never treated to the sight of Jimmy and Rosalyn demonstrating that. But it took Ronald Reagan to decontrol oil prices and encourage the increase of oil supplies to end the war. Leftists prefer the "existential" approach, in which a problem is not so much solved as prolonged and used as a pretext to curtail the freedoms of others.

Joseph Butler Calvert Whitehurst • Apr 18, 2020 at 10:58

Every time Carter traveled he would carry these empty suitcases that were props out to air force one and the press would say "What a humble everyman!"

King K Calvert Whitehurst • Apr 18, 2020 at 12:27

Exactly correct. The leftists didn't create the virus, but they have capitalized on it by creating panic, crashing the US economy, in fact, the world economy, and foisting on the rest of us exactly the type of world they want. Go through all the articles and commentary that discusses the flaws of the statistical models, the inflated virus numbers, and the incredible, dispiriting destructiveness, not to mention illegality, of this needless shutdown. They are virtually all from non-left sources. The left, as usual, is in near-complete lockstep, in this case in support of even further shutdown. Social distancing, wearing masks, banning large gatherings - forever. The divide is probably even starker than it is on global warming. That should tell people all they need to know.

Calvert Whitehurst King K • Apr 18, 2020 at 13:09

My ex-brother-in-law plans to vote for Biden - but then, he always votes Democratic - because he thinks the federal government needs to be run by "professionals."

Josh Passell Calvert Whitehurst • Apr 18, 2020 at 17:12

And so it is. By practitioners of the oldest profession of all, as a matter of fact.

Walt Trimmer King K • Apr 18, 2020 at 17:41

But if it would save just one life!

Kate Smyth King K • Apr 18, 2020 at 23:10

Note that Trump, Johnson and Morrison are not "leftists" wrt assigning blame for crashing the global economy: they are at least serious enough to see the CCP virus for the attack that it is.

As for "Social distancing, wearing masks, banning large gatherings - forever": if adopted (voluntarily) it will be based on the well-founded mistrust of China in terms of future SARS viruses (which is why the big picture needs to addressed). It seems unlikely that these same measures were a left-right thing in US cities during the Spanish flu pandemic: vigorous "distancing" (rules on elevator use were enforced); mask-wearing (see numerous photos); and bans on mass gatherings (see history of staggered church services, transit arrangements and work hours etc) were viewed by most citizens as a collective sacrifice and civic duty - not cowardice - despite the infringement of individual liberties, and the disruptive/ economic impact. And that was in the absence of any element of criminal transmission of the disease beyond its origin.

To hear some commentators, a century later, openly mock these recommendations - which have nothing to do with the "courage" of 99-plus%, but everything to do with slowing-the-spread - is baffling.

In protesting against the absurd, arbitrary lockdowns, it's good to see those at rallies take seriously everything you dismiss -ie. distancing and masks - because, otherwise, they'd be undermining the President's "Opening Up America Again" efforts (which are based around lowering case numbers). To do otherwise would be a sure way to lose the election.

PS. Re "the inflated virus numbers", this is a right-wing "Covid-truther" phenomenon. There are no doubt errors in both directions at the margins, but how do you account for 5,000-plus additional deaths - regardless of cause - in NYC in March? Are these due to excess car accident fatalities (above baseline) falsely certified as Covid?

Michael Costello • Apr 18, 2020 at 09:00

Thanks so much for your tribute to Lee Konitz. Back in the days of vinyl and cd's I would see his name on dozens of jazz albums. I am not sure if I appreciated his work as much as I should have, but I will be ordering "Stairway to the Stars" from Itunes today.

Fran Lavery Â • Apr 18, 2020 at 03:34

I really loved that sweet little poem and wondered if the poems that don't appear in the videos of Sunday Poems will get their own sub section in that area for easy access. Tear jerking ending that story about the couple dying after so many years together. Gets to be all too much to take some days.

Fran Lavery Â Fran Lavery Â • Apr 18, 2020 at 16:45

It took a little persistence because I was spelling Charlotte's last name as "Fillibrand Jarold," not Fillibrown Jerauld, but I found her and the title of her little book is "Poetry and Prose." I saw one copy at Amazon and now it seems to be gone. All the other copies seem to be from the UK and Germany. A real head scratcher that is.

c.d. • Apr 18, 2020 at 02:48

You'd have to think any group that calls itself SAGE is bound to fall flat on its behind. Hope not , as no one has added to our knowledge or eased human suffering as much as scientists.

Was staggered by the Wuhan International Airport saga , its remaining open sanctioned by the WHO and China's government after Wuhan was shut down , as was travel between Wuhan and other Chinese cities.

Western countries should have shut sooner , this pandemic is no surprise , scientists have been warning of it for over a decade. Perhaps the almighty dollar and You're Wacist ! played their part.

Love your passion and humour .

John C. : Harold Holt wasn't scuba diving , my older cousin was a Navy diver. Why would you go swimming off that beach? For US members, it faces Tasmania.

Kate Smyth c.d. • Apr 18, 2020 at 12:13

HH got picked up by a Chinese sub, remember?

"His widow, Zara Holt, scoffed at claims he was involved with the Chinese government. She once remarked, "He didn't even like Chinese food"." (Source = some blog post.)

Greg the Kiwi • Apr 17, 2020 at 23:12

Loved the show Mark , maybe one of the best , Please release me !- I reckon a kungflu album on the cards
Beautiful poem too
An you got our wonderful downunder Kate truly excited with some fab missives!

Mark replies:

Thank you, Greg, A Corona album may well be coming...

Kate Smyth • Apr 17, 2020 at 22:15

When President Trump announced the "racist!" ban on inbound flights from China - apparently on the advice of "conspiracy theorist!", Senator Tom Cotton - the Democrat-Media Complex was attempting to remove him from office - again (noting AG Barr's assessment of the appalling Russia Hoax that was perpetrated against Donald J Trump by the Deep State).

President Trump took crucial steps to contain Covid at the US border; but what did Dr Fauci do to contain its spread within the US? Whether or not his predictive "curve" models turn out to be wrong, Dr Fauci erred because he did not take preventative action soon enough, as his counterparts did in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese et al - who mistrusted China after SARS-1 - didn't have to "flatten the curve" because there was no curve to flatten: they enacted early measures to their protect populations *and* economies from harm. Why wasn't Dr Fauci advising this course, instead of telling Americans to "go to the mall", in March?! (Stephen McIntyre has a detailed and damning timeline on Fauci, via a Twitter thread dated April 10.)

The recently released guidelines on "Opening Up America Again" - including aggressive test-trace-isolate strategies - could have been used from the outset on a much more limited scale to ensure that America never closed down in the first place. #FireFauci

Damien Carbury • Apr 17, 2020 at 20:10

I had to go out to far western NSW yesterday to pick up a rescue dog for my pack (Australian Coolie dogs). Turned out she was being housed at a giant ethanol refinery. The owner came out and shook my hand saying 'we don't have the virus out here, mate' and said the locals didn't want his prized ethanol for hand sanitizer; they just wanted to make limoncello. It was a wonderful moment of normality in an otherwise bleepy week. So as to Mark's worry that the handshake may disappear - I can happily tell you all there is no risk of that happening in country Australia.

Perry Pattetic • Apr 17, 2020 at 19:57

The facts were out pretty early, Mark - Wuhan, lab,HIV code, split proteins, bat researchers, published info.Then they were denied, hushed up and suppressed by Twitter, the MSM, the WHO, half of the population who said "it's just flu" Italian, American, British, French and other politicians.

Brave Chinese people kept the truth alive, and were disappeared. They knew they had no freedom to protest.

Kate Smyth Perry Pattetic • Apr 17, 2020 at 22:20

"Brave Chinese people kept the truth alive, and were disappeared. They knew they had no freedom to protest."

Thank you for this, Perry... this brought tears to my eyes (as did the images of fearless Hong Kong protesters with their Trump "Rocky" posters late last year). Countless innocent Chinese citizens are victims too.

Note Fauci's task-force leaking last week, per The Hill - "WaPo: Trump allegedly asked Fauci if officials could let coronavirus 'wash over' US" (April 11th). In fact, it looks like Fauci - who said the effect of Covid-19 would be "minuscule" - allowed the virus to "wash over" America. Watch this space...

John Cholakovski • Apr 17, 2020 at 19:34

An interesting aside to your comments about the death of PM Harold Holt. Cheviot Beach, where he was scuba diving that fateful day, was on the grounds of the Point Nepean Military School. Prior to it becoming a military base, it was one of the oldest Quarantine Stations in Australia. In those days we would quarantine people entering our country, now we quarantine the citizens of the country.

Marc Swerdloff • Apr 17, 2020 at 17:30

Mark Steyn is the Patrick Henry of our time!

Drew • Apr 17, 2020 at 17:11

Regardless of how the virus got started in Wuhan, the Chicoms locked down its surroundings brutally enough to stop significant spread WITHIN China while encouraging INTERNATIONAL travel by Chinese to the 4 corners of the globe but especially Europe and North America, their rivals. Through their stooge Tedros at WHO they lied about human to human transmission and delayed closing of borders, crying "racism" at early attempts until sufficient seeding had been done by Chinese carriers to start community transmission. Note that Bejing and Shanghai are in healthy shape while NYC and London are devastated. This is criminal behavior of the highest order and will not be punished by the UN Ugly Nations and Useless Nations under the thumb of Russia, the Muslim bloc of 57 and China itself. Only millions of individuals refusing to buy Chinese in future can hold them to account.

Damien Carbury Drew • Apr 17, 2020 at 20:12

A brilliant summation. What more need be said?

Kate Smyth Drew • Apr 17, 2020 at 22:40

On February 1st, the Australian PM, Scott Morrison, announced a ban on flights from China to howls of protest from the CCP - when the ChiComs knew EXACTLY what they would be inflicting on this country, with the return of around 100,000 asymptomatic student* carriers of infection for the commencement of the academic year. (This was the day that President Trump announced the same crucial - "racist!" - ban on China-US flights, ie. January 31st in America.)

The university vice chancellors howled too, because their massively inflated incomes - based on the sale of over-priced, crappy degrees to foreigners - mattered more than the safety of Australians. (See Janet Albrechtsen's column today, which also mentions US and UK Chinese student cash cows: "Universities get lesson in risk, but will they learn?")

Remember the despicable, bipartisan congressional "insider trading" on this pandemic - including the Republican who stock-piled PPE supplies? Like the US, our polity is infected too - including on the conservative side (with CCP apologists such as Mark's old mate, Alexander Downer).

Sovereign nations need to follow President Trump's initiative, and clear out their permanent political-media-class swamps: their very survival depends on it.

*Note that "student" is a euphemism for "spy", in some cases.

Owen Morgan Kate Smyth • Apr 18, 2020 at 02:15

Luckily, given the state of universities in Britain and North America, Chinese spies have little chance of learning anything, either side of the Atlantic. You in Oz should turn your unis into marxist basket cases, as a matter of urgency, if you haven't done it already. When post-maoists from China meet eager proto-maoists from elsewhere, they should realise that there are no secrets left worth stealing.

Segnes Schonken Owen Morgan • Apr 19, 2020 at 13:29

Hilarious, O. - and dead right.

John Bartley • Apr 17, 2020 at 16:27

I am fond of the bleep machine. I once watched Eddie Murphy's stand up routine on broadcast cable. It sounded like a wireless telegraph from WWII, and was the funniest thing I have ever heard. I always wondered if I could decipher Morse code if I would find message from Satan.

Joseph Dornisch • Apr 17, 2020 at 16:14

I salute that guy who told the cops where they could go, to! You'd think the English would get more antagonistic to their cops in general.

Laura Rosen Cohen • Apr 17, 2020 at 15:44

Hi Mark, have you noticed that PM Hairdo has started to dye his eyebrows grey as well?

You know what I'd love? I'd love for someone, some journalist with balls that would only need to be slightly bigger than jelly beans-even slightly bigger than black eyed peas even, to ask the Mammy Singer in Chief if he still admires China's basic dictatorship. GAWD that would be amazing.

Josh Passell Laura Rosen Cohen • Apr 18, 2020 at 06:02

I thought Boy Justin's eyebrows were stick-ons. If so, he could just swap out his Grecian Formula* Man-Bun Auburn model for Gravitas Gray and he'd go from skateboarder to statesman in no time. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a whole collection for different presentations--though he's had to retire the Uncle Remus Whites along with the Kiwi Mahogany shoe polish, at least until he returns to private life.

* I would have picked the Just For Men line, but this is Justin we're talking about.

Robert Fox • Apr 17, 2020 at 15:16

Mark, I don't know how you produce those "Last Call" segments with such strength and grace. My heart sinks to the floor when I listen to them. But it is ESSENTIAL that someone humanizes this coldblooded criminal act by Bejing that has brought death prematurely to these poor people. All of these people were important and had much more to contribute to us all. God bless them all and thank you for helping them to not be forgotten.

Laura Rosen Cohen Robert Fox • Apr 17, 2020 at 15:48

I second your sentiments here, Robert.

Kate Smyth • Apr 17, 2020 at 14:45

Regardless of whether SARS-CoV-2 was a bio-weapon in the making when it spread beyond the Wuhan lab - or even if the wet market story were true - the CCP and WHO are responsible for the *criminal transmission* of the virus to the rest of the world.

China's intentional non-disclosure was, in part, because it was hoarding PPE and depleting other nations of their supplies, fully aware of the impending tsunami of disease - and collateral economic damage - that would eventually hit other countries.

Every death resulting from this attack is *unacceptable*, and the continued comparisons with baseline mortality due to chronic disease and seasonal flu by some people are giving conservatives a deservedly bad name, as Mark noted (in episode 6): they sound as indifferent to the demise of fellow citizens as the CCP. The continued narrative of "just a bad cold" in "old people" - which it manifestly is not - dismisses as inevitable the fate of individuals who are ACTUAL victims - ie. victims in the same way they would be had China used an ICBM instead. After all, why be angry at China for a contagion that was a threat when it reached the border, but a big "nothingburger" when it spread within. (More on Dr Fauci - and "state power in a lab coat" - elsewhere.)

From the outset, this has been a MAJOR international security incident, and many conservatives are just too myopic to see it as such. To borrow a line of from a previous Coronacopia: "China thinks ahead. Will we?"

Agree with you completely Kate. What do you think about calling it the CCP virus?

Damien Carbury Kate Smyth • Apr 17, 2020 at 20:16

+1 Kate Smyth and LRC. The criminal transmission is the critical element. Perhaps upon the successful result of civil cases in the USA the Federal Government could act to cancel bondsHeld by the Chicoms to the equivalent of Damages awarded. And Nancy Pelosi might fly.

Kate Smyth Laura Rosen Cohen • Apr 17, 2020 at 22:42

Absolutely... it's all about the ideology! #ChiComFlu

Greg the Kiwi Kate Smyth • Apr 17, 2020 at 23:13

Fab comments Kate , great thoughts

Kate Smyth Greg the Kiwi • Apr 18, 2020 at 12:24

Appreciate the Antipodean feedback, Greg and Damien.

We are lucky to get the full Covid-19 context from Mark, from the "Last Call" account of victims to the TFOT historical perspective... plus the jack-booted BWC-of-the-Day angle, and a good dose of Kung Flu humour to top it off. Surprisingly few people are focussing on the "big picture" security threat beyond the economic fall-out.

It's interesting that Hong Kongers get it: the preparation to limit the known risk and impact of CCP contagions, along with taking to the streets for months - despite the economic side-effect - to resist communist tyranny.

Kate Smyth Damien Carbury • Apr 18, 2020 at 12:32

Couldn't agree more, D. A guest on Tucker Carlson noted that "every life lost and every job lost" from Covid-19 is due to the CCP. God rot them (as Mark says).

If there's one phrase that gets my blood boiling (and there are actually 173, as of last count), it's "We're all in this together." Because we are not: that is a lie. And not by my reckoning. We can't be together when "they" would just as soon "we" all died of the Chinese-so-Chinese-Its-DNA-Code-Spells-Out-Made-in-China-Chinese Flu. Not just Donald Trump, but Republicans. Not just Donald Trump and Republicans, but anyone who ever did or ever would vote for him. If the death toll should be the 63 million who voted for him last time or the 77.4 million Twitter followers he has today, well, nearer their God to Thee, the bastards. All in this together? Nonsense. Don't get me started, or Mark will have to bleep this post the way he had to bleep my new hero, the father of children I hope to have from my uterus one day, the fellow who cussed the coppers out of his castle.

Ian Cory • Apr 17, 2020 at 13:59

"Scientists, (and experts generally), should be on tap, not on top"! (Winston Churchill)

Segnes Schonken Ian Cory • Apr 17, 2020 at 20:29

Such a telling quotation, I. You deserve applause for invoking it, and instead you're going to get my incoherent elaboration. There's no justice.

Good science is important, but it is not necessarily good policy. Put a medical practitioner in charge of policy, and, in consequence of his perfectly legitimate concern with preventing infection, criminals are released from gaol around the globe. Sure enough, fewer criminals are infected by the Wuhan lurgy. Other people are infected by murders, rapes, robberies, what have you, but that's all incidental to containing the spread of the lurgy. Clever. Needed a rocket scientist for that, for sure.

One of the more entertaining diversions just lately has been the ubiquitous debate, verging on acrimonious, between people trying to make sense of the incomplete and unreliable data made available to be public. It doesn't help that in many cases the middlemen for getting the data have been journalists who can't count the fingers on their hands and come up with the same number twice running, but set that aside. The only data showing a consistent pattern have indicated that there is a distinct vulnerable population for this epidemic, moreover one which is no longer the mainstay of the work-force. (Yes, yes, I know: no part of the population is entirely invulnerable. I refer to the statistics which surpass those applicable to the 'flu which goes about every year without causing the West to implode. Not that I thought you had mistaken me, but there may be third parties convinced that I am an actual idiot. I prefer to be only suspected of that.) But to return to the medical experts, they recommend policy going miles beyond the vulnerable population to save every last life in a way which would never be contemplated in response to the 'flu which goes about every year without causing the West to implode, coÃ»te qu'il coÃ»te. And the people who are supposed to make policy act on that, no questions asked, and the public agrees that this is how it should be.

I've written before that one can't blame specialists for a certain narrowness of perspective. But here's the thing: whether one admires Mr Churchill unconditionally or not, he had the good sense not to leave policy decisions in the hands of those specialists, or anyway said he did. As you have pointed out, he ensured that his experts were "on tap, not on top". What has possessed Western leaders to ignore that golden axiom? What has possessed Western society to allow its leadership to ignore such an obvious truth?

There's lunacy afoot, let alone mere folly.

Fran Lavery Segnes Schonken • Apr 18, 2020 at 20:48

What has possessed Western leaders to ignore that golden axiom, Segnes, you ask. It started when government started handing out money to scientists to come up to solutions to our energy "problems," wasn't it? That was all they needed to move from "on tap," to "on top." One big societal or health problem after another, just throw government money at it. The fake scientists come out of the woodwork like ravenous mice. When all the issues are solved they create more complex problems to be solved like how to defeat a deadly bat virus that might leak out of a research laboratory in enemy territory.

Segnes Schonken Fran Lavery • Apr 19, 2020 at 01:44

Thanks, F. That certainly makes sense to me. How to reverse the situation, especially with neighbours like the good old People's Republic and voters who support Bernie Sanders?

Fran Lavery Segnes Schonken • Apr 19, 2020 at 14:09

How to reverse the situation? S, let's start with this: people don't like losers. Who are the biggest losers now? Bernie who? Mark Steyn was right on the money about him before anyone. Bernie, the Ben & Jerry Socialist flavor-of-the-month politician wasn't about winning anything. The losers are people in positions of power who aren't solving any problems, who are aggressively and irrationally making our lives miserable and who in many instances got us into this mess in the first place. They need to reimburse us so we can repair the country and repair the lives of the survivors of this catastrophe. The taxpayers are fed up with being the garbage the politicians put out every week on trash pick-up day.

To start, the funding of any domestic public project that doesn't serve to grow our economy and help the country get back to normal societal and economic growth patterns immediately needs to stop. Tucker talked recently about foreign guest workers coming in to save our necks in certain industries. Our own citizens are available now to work in the tens of millions, thank you.

Any corrupted government agency shown to have been negligent in serving the needs of the American people in a time of crisis and whose accumulated regulations and bloat have proven to have restricted their timely response time to our needs, in this particular Chinese bat virus crisis, saving our very lives, and jeopardized our entire way of life, must be given an ultimatum by President Trump that they clean their house. Heads need to roll, in other words, just like they do in the private sector. Let's bring back the expression, "you're fired"! to anyone at any level of government that deserves it. Maybe we needed a global catastrophe like this to give people a chance to see our weakness as a country and to see where we are able to make corrections. I though 9/11 was that catastrophe for the US.

The Congress needs to stop throwing our money around for things that aren't essential. The bills going through for passage need to be clean and not pork laden. Vigorous debates need to return to the floors of the House and Senate so people can see and hear for themselves what the politicians say, not through ideological talking heads on the networks.

Another mandatory item involving our legislators is the complete reading comprehension and digestion of bills. Gone should be the days when we find out what's in the bills after they pass. Career politicians are killing us. A pre-req for serving as an elected official is what real world, private sector position a candidate held.

Finally, the Government just taught us a big lesson as to who they think is essential as opposed to nonessential among the citizens to the point where we've been encouraged to snitch on each other for little infractions. They even have turned our law enforcement against us as evident by all these wanker stories. We are being programmed not to trust anyone from our friends and neighbors who we can't even talk about politics for fear of alienation, to our law enforcement, all the way up to our leaders in Congress who want to impeach the POTUS we elected fairly and squarely.

Now we know we can't trust them and our leaders in corporations and higher education as far as we can throw them for we see more than a handful are in bed with the Chinese government and cow tow to them and some are involved with sharing our intelligence and high tech secrets with our political enemies. It's yet another thing that Mark Steyn pointed out long before anyone. These officious and well-heeled people in power need to buy back our respect and trust before we give them any future support.

Time has come for the citizens to turn it around and make the politicians and various bureaucracies be very aware among themselves which individual and which agency is essential and which is no longer of value to us. Let it come down to a matter of their own extinction or survival, not that of the citizens. Somehow, through dogged persistence, we must achieve this. There's no longer any upside to not trying this approach as pie-in-the-sky as it may sound.

Nigel Sherratt • Apr 17, 2020 at 13:56

Lovely tribute to David and Muriel Cohen, thank you, not a dry eye in this house certainly and I daresay a few others.

chickensoup • Apr 17, 2020 at 13:21

I had been one of I sure hundreds who sent this police video to you for the cop-wanker series. When I orignially saw it on twitter, I actually could not believe it. As an American and fan of British police procedurals, I was deeply shocked at the .....crummmy-ness... of the British police. No Adam Daglisch or Midsomer Murder here. Just thuggish behaviors, insufferable arrogance, and worse. Although I notice that women in policing have an affinity for unpleasantness that apprears to be international in scope. Am enjoying the show. Take care Mark.

Drew chickensoup • Apr 17, 2020 at 17:29

This is the same police force who for years looked the other way as Muslim Pakistani rape gangs preyed on young English girls in multiple cities yet harass citizens for "hate speech" who criticize such travesties publicly like Tommy Robinson. How has the "London Bobby" of high repute been corrupted into defender of Islam's ugliest excesses? Women's participation turned police into social workers but this is smelling more like Stasi than bleeding heart. Where's the bleeding heart for the young raped girls? Or for seniors who remember that Britain used to be a beacon for citizen rights instead of suppressor?

Segnes Schonken Drew • Apr 17, 2020 at 21:50

To be fair, petty officialdom is home to pompous dolts world-wide. Still, the Bobbies used to command more respect. I think that Conan Doyle's Lestrade has become the template for recruitment, for which I blame the human resources people who have probably introduced the latest technology in personality, aptitude and teamworthiness assessment and are giving due precedence to culture fit. (Horrible thing is that I speak only partially in jest!)

Robert • Apr 17, 2020 at 13:03

And as for conspiracies, the last word is still with Dorothy Sayers' Have His Carcase (quoting from memory):

"But just a minute, Inspector", broke in Wimsey, "I only said the plan went wrong. I never said they didn't carry it out."

Seems to happen with conspiracies all the time.

Corkie Shibley • Apr 17, 2020 at 12:55

Dear Mark,
Why is it that truth is the first casualty when American businesses jump into bed with the Chinese?

Truth in a name? In the news this week is the Smithfield meat packing plant closure in S. Dakota. I grew up about 100 miles from Smithfield, Virginia when the company made and processed pork products there. Smithfield today is not only not that company anymore, but news stories never mention the Chinese purchase and destruction of U.S. jobs.

Truth in a place? S. Dakota, an American company employing Americans, right? Wrong! Those aren't Americans that work in the plant, or they wouldn't need interpreters in the emergency room to handle the corona virus victims.

The Chinese want the good will of American brands while destroying everything the brands stand for. Businesses need to be pressured into doing what Costco did voluntarily in their chicken processing plant. They revamped the whole process, adding automation, paying their workers more, not relying on cheap foreign labor.

Tennessee put their foot down and told the Chinese that if they want to sell Tennessee whiskey it has to actually be made there.

The George W.Bush center is burbling that the answer is more globalization, not less. He has a lot to answer for!

Eric Peterson • Apr 17, 2020 at 12:53

A question for others posting to SOL. As a dyed in the wool luddite of sorts, I've posted all of three times here, latest being my recommendations for the song of the week blitz coming up. Of the three I've gotten one "thanks for your post, it's now up" kind of message back. Does that mean my recommendations/questions are just downright awful, print up for some moderator all in CAPS, get jammed with profanity/promotions/insults etc somewhere between my iPad and the moderators, or just get lost in some cyberspace black hole? If this is a general issue, then I'll take my stripes with the best of them. If not, should I just call myself a Tennessee content farmer and let that be the end of it? Or make random comments about pocket squares? Inquiring minds want to know!

Mark replies:

Not at all, Eric. No song requests are being posted, as they're being saved for this Sunday's show.

Robert • Apr 17, 2020 at 12:50

John Bellingham..... also appears in Austin Freeman's The Eye of Osiris. A possible Tale For Our Time?

Gary Alexander • Apr 17, 2020 at 11:59

Mark, your opening of "Please Release Me, Let Me Go" reminded me of similar songs I'm planning to play on my show today about sequestration, beginning with Russ Columbo singing "Prisoner of Love." How about some new words? For the main refrain, I just change the word "love" to "fear" but you can probably have some more fun with the bridge.

Alone from night to night you'll find meToo weak to break the chains that bind meI need no shackles to remind meI'm just a prisoner of fear

For one command I stand and wait nowFrom one who's master of my fate nowI can't escape, for it's too late nowI'm just a prisoner of fear

What's the good of cocooningAnd distance communingFrom homes... far apart?While those who know betterBrand with red letterThose who touch...from the heart?

They're in my dreams, awake or sleepingThe cops who keep me now from creepingTo shop. My life is in their keepingI'm just a prisoner of fear

Robert Stewart • Apr 17, 2020 at 11:53

Mark, the WSJ had an article today suggesting that Vitamin D may be helpful in fighting COVID-19. Please get out of your basement and get some sunshine. You are essential! Don't give up! Release yourself!

RAC Robert Stewart • Apr 17, 2020 at 16:28

This has been well known for ages Robert and thanks for mentioning this. Some of the brightest lights in the field of immunology have maintained for many years that virus outbreaks occurring mostly in the winter months has very little or perhaps nothing at all to do with people staying indoors more. Use simple common sense here - people congregate just as much in July as in January.They go to church, sporting events of all sorts from pee-wee sports to stadiums holding 100,000 people crammed in super close, movie theaters, restaurants, parties, grocery stores, and on and on - the list is endless! Any medical researcher even posing this question faces excommunication because it's not 'settled doctrine'. If Dr. Fauci and the all-powerful FDA had had their way no one's life in America would have been saved by Prof. Didier Raoult's protocols based on Hydroxychloroquine. That any positive mention of this drug is banned throughout the main stream media today should bother conservatives. Doesn't seem to - few on the right even bring it up.

Owen Morgan • Apr 17, 2020 at 11:52

Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, is also a leading bureaucrat in the WHO.

Lawrence Edwards • Apr 17, 2020 at 11:51

Many in the UK Police have lost their minds. I don't know what else to say, it's one of the most depressing things about this crisis.